Reach Out And Find Your Happily Ever After! Our Engagement Trip! *updated 1/14* - New TR Link!

[TheLittleKatie]

This is my FAVORITE breakfast buffet on property.. SO YUMMY!! Have you ever tried the strawberry soup?

It was so good, I was pleasantly surprised! Because you generally hear that restaurants with character meals generally slack with the food a bit... But I loved it! Jamie and I have done it for dinner before which I remember being yummy too

Oh God I have a controversial opinion...I'm not really a fan of the strawberry soup! I tried it at dinner a few years and just thought it tasted like melted strawberry ice cream it's not really something that appeals to me very much!! But I know that the general consensus is that it' delicious, so it must just be me in the wrong Is it meant to be a soup, or do you eat it as a dessert?!

I'm so happy there are one of these stores at the grand!

Just to end your visit with an extra bit of luxury the line for hand-washing will be out the door once it reopens from lockdown!

Do you guys always converse in all caps? or was it just the excitement of the vacation?

Oh god yes it's the excited caps lock and we were pretty excited the whole trip, so you might see a whole lot of that

How fun to go ride Splash before your character breakfast!

Haha I know! What a great plan! Totally worth the big detour en route to the Grand!

1900 Park Fare breakfast looks adorable! It's definitley on my list of experiences to try. ALl of the photos were adorable and the character interactions sounded great.

Yes yes you need to go! The characters were so fun and easy to talk to, I love that. And the food was really good! Like I just said above, it's surprising because I always expect the food to be not-so-good at character meals. It was great!

Ohana looked delicious! Another ADR on my list to do one day.

Yes yes, it's so great if you're a meat-eater! The skewers are always flowing

That's great to hear you all were feeling better this day. It sounded like your whole day was great, MK, character breakfast, Disney Springs, and Ohana - sounds like heaven to me!

It all worked out great! I was so glad things were back on track after we'd gotten sick. It felt so awful at the time, but looking back at the timings of our illnesses, it was only a minor set-back really

As always, looking forward to reading more!

Thanks so much for reading!

 

[TheLittleKatie]

Aww Pedro, just to start with, I was reading back over my 2016 trip report, and remembering how fun it was to meet you that time When you spotted us in the line for China at Food and Wine Festival one evening, and then later in the trip sitting in La Cava Del Tequila for aaaages getting ushered out by the waitresses good times!

No. I have never heard of Arctic Monkeys.

WHAT.
They're pretty famous! And they're the pride and joy of my hometown

And by association, I've never heard of "mardy" either? Except in French, when it means "Tuesday".

Not many people have heard of mardy to be fair It means grumpy. It was very specific to our area of the UK, but the Arctic Monkeys made it famous across the country by releasing a (fantastic) song called 'Mardy Bum' in the mid-2000s, and now I think pretty much everyone here knows it

omg! How did you know I was reading this in the morning?!?!?

That's usually when people need to start reading my ramblings in order to get to bed at a reasonable time of night

And strawberry soup!
(Which I then learned you didn't eat??????)

Ahh I'm such a traitor to Disney fans everywhere, I just don't like it that much!! I tried it at dinner a few years ago. It just reminds me of eating melted strawberry ice cream that's been sat out and is now room temperature Are you supposed to eat it as a dessert? It's just not that appetising to me!

Apparently my favourite gif at the moment

But of course!

I read this in Lumiere's voice.

"After the ride, we asked if we could dive into the river. We did!"

We may as well have done!!

That's a dangerous spot. I always sit there urging my log to hurry up!

The suspense kills me! It's worse than the big drop, because you just don't know how you're going to come out the other side

Um...
There's a light coming from her... um... er...


How about I just say she's positively glowing!!!

Hahaha I hadn't noticed! Very 'Old Gregg'..

And after you eat, you'll probably need to meet Pooh again.

After getting so sick, this was something we were trying DESPERATELY to avoid Even right at the end of the trip when we were mostly feeling fine, Jamie had to make a couple of runs to the bathroom don't tell him I'm telling you this.

Is that eggs benedict I see????

YES they were delicious!

There's a rule against that, but... somehow I don't think Disney is going to care too much if you grab a couple spare waffles.

Oh god I'm such a rebel.

Ugh... "As pkondz hurries in the opposite direction".

You don't like to MousekeDance it Pedro?!

In your birthday suits? My, aren't we daring!

This belongs at Disney After Dark.

"and I walked smack into a display case, destroying thousands of dollars of glassware."

I wouldn't put it past us

Where is that? Don't think I'm familiar with that one... which is saying something!

It's the little store by Gaston's Tavern in New Fantasyland! They have loads of cute Beauty and the Beast stuff in there.

Definitely can see you in those.

I can't read that without saying "mango cando" in my head.

What is wrong with me????

Lots of things love

I've never had it... and want it so bad...

You HAVE to go there! Next time we're at Disney at the same time I'll drag you there.

Sure. Here you go:
Ohana Bread Pudding

Fantastic!!!! That's a surprising number of ingredients just for the sauce. But I am fully committed

 

[TheLittleKatie]

Your Ohana pictures make me really hungry too. I may have to head there like, the second WDW opens back up.

Oh I know tell me about it! I might actually make that bread pudding at home while we're on lockdown! I'll never be able to make it as good as they do though

Just joining in now, so I have A LOOOT of catching up to do!! I just wanted to pop in and say congrats on the engagement!!!! My DH proposed to me in MK back in 2017!!! It was SOOO magical!! I can't wait to read about yours!!!

Ahh thanks so much for reading!! And for the congratulations! Ahh that's amazing, whereabouts in MK did he pop the question?! Jamie was too worried about getting busted at the security scanners trying to take the ring into a park, that's very daring of your DH!

 

[TheLittleKatie]

Day 7
Sunday 10th February 2019
Part 1 – Diagon Alley! And Other Universal Fun


Good morning!
Happy Universal day!

I was so glad this day was finally here.
Fran had been so upset when we’d had to skip our day at Universal day because her and Jamie got sick.
Rob and Fran are huge Harry Potter fans, so I’d promised we’d still make time to go!
After some reshuffling of plans, that day had finally come!
We actually went two days in row, and both times in “costume”
Today we each dressed up as members from our Hogwarts houses

After doing several online quizzes, I’m firmly a Hufflepuff
Jamie is a Slytherin , and Rob is a Gryffindor.
Fran had had some mixed results, one being Ravenclaw.
She wanted to be a Slytherin, but we encouraged her to go with Ravenclaw so that we’d be representing each of the four houses!
Rob even had a robe, fake glasses, and drew a scar on his head

Here’s a photo of all four of us from later in the day!

Oww I’m so lucky to go to Disney with other people who get really into it

We got an Uber from the front of the Beach Club at 8:30am and arrived at Universal just before 9am.

Voodoo Doughnut – now open!

We were starting our day at the Universal Studios park!

As we walked through the archway we realised we’d made it in time for rope drop

When they opened up the park we made a beeline straight for Diagon Alley!

This Slytherin-in-disguise looks a bit shifty…

We were all so excited to be at the Wizarding World in our costumes!
Rob had already been to Universal with his family back in 2016, but this was Fran’s first time.
She LOVED it, she was frantically trying to look at everything and take it all in

At 9:30am the line for Escape From Gringotts was still pretty short, so that’s what we did!

Apart from Fran hating the plummet, this ride went down a treat!

We exited just after 10am, and we spent some time looking around the shops.

Rob and Fran also did some spells with their interactive wands!
Rob and his sister had both bought one when they were here last time, and his sister had lent hers to Fran for this trip!

At 10:30am Rob and Fran got breakfast at The Leaky Cauldron.

Rob got the Traditional Breakfast and Fran got the Pancake Breakfast.
Jamie and I weren’t very hungry so we just got coffee, but I ended up eating Fran’s croissant that she didn’t want.
I’ve been dating The Gull for too long

Once we were done we continued browsing the shops, in both Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley.

JAWS.

I really love these cats with the smushed up faces.
I want one so bad.

Then we did something at Rob’s suggestion, that Jamie and I hadn’t actually done before.
We went to Ollivander’s!
We really wanted Rob to get picked to be part of the “show”, it would’ve been so great with him in his Harry costume!
I’m sure he would’ve done a great acting job too

We got really confident, theorising that they MUST pick adults, because if they pick kids that could be seen as pressurising parents into buying wands…
It’s like advertising to kids, making them think that these wands actually have magical powers
Plus Rob’s sister was chosen when they were here a few years ago, and there were a bunch of kids in the group that time.
But our theory was nulled pretty quickly.

Sadly it was not meant to be.
Rob's face when a sweet little child gets picked:

Just kidding, the show was cute.
And the storage of wands in the shop at the end was really satisfying.

]

After a good couple of hours exploring Diagon Alley, we left at around 11:30am and went to ride Men In Black!
This is one of mine and Jamie’s favourites, we get so competitive!
And I won this round!
What’s even more impressive is that I didn’t even get the 100,000 bonus points, and Jamie did, so really I should've won by an even bigger margin

Rob and Fran were sat behind us, and at the end of the ride Fran was like,
“I didn’t even know what I was meant to be shooting at! ”

Next we rode the Simpsons!

It was intense.
I like it, but I’m not sure about the others.
I know that Jamie is going off it because it gives him headaches

They should’ve kept it as Back to the Future, which is my one of my favourite films!
I vaguely remember riding that ride as a kid.
I’ve YouTubed it more recently and it just looks so great.

RIP!

Click for Next Post!
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[TheLittleKatie]

Day 7
Sunday 10th February 2019
Part 2 - Hogsmeade! And Other Universal Fun


On the way to our next attraction we spotted A GULL.
He looked like he was ready to pounce on Lard Lad’s donut, which was amusing to us because Jamie (our Gull) was going through a donut phase.

Friend!

At 12:30pm we headed in to E.T.
A classic

We found this guy in the queue.
That was exciting because Jamie and I are usually in the Express line, so I don’t think we’ve ever seen him before.

I really love the outdoor scene of the ET queue.
I might prefer it to the actual ride
No that’s a lie, I like the first half of the ride.
The music gives me feelings.

At the end of the ride, E.T. didn’t say goodbye to us, AGAIN.
It’s getting kind of rude to be honest.
But it might be because, we’d been calling Rob ‘Mr. Potato Head’ around this time (or just 'potato' for short, don’t ask), so when the CM asked for his name he said “potato” just really deadpan.
The CM kinda laughed, but maybe they don’t allow that kind of rebellious behaviour.
If everyone did that it would just be pandemonium.
It would be like E.T. was on one of those gameshows where you have to remember random items on the conveyor belt then say it all back.

After E.T. we rode The Mummy!
Which surprisingly I have no evidence of (other than my trip notes from the time), which is strange because this is probably my favourite ride in the park.
We actually rode it twice in a row because there was no line!
It’s a truly under-appreciated attraction.

At 1:30pm we got the Hogwarts Express from the Studios park over to Islands of Adventure!

Welcome to Hogsmeade!

Here’s the whole gang on our first day of school!

We rode Forbidden Journey which was so fun!

The queue is so good, there’s so much to see.

YAY HARRY.

After the ride it was like 2:30pm so we got lunch at The Three Broomsticks!
I got the beef pasties, but I think I chose the wrong meal because it wasn’t much at all…?!

There were three pasties to start with, but they were tiny!
I didn’t even make a note of what the others had, I must’ve been very disappointed with my choice
However, to be fair, some of the photos on their Tripadvisor page look really good.
I’ll have to do some research on what to order for next time.

I was still hungry after my teeny pasties, so we went to Honeydukes and I got some chocolate!

Yummm it was huge and very tasty.
I think I needed that sugar kick.

Then we walked around to Marvel Super Hero Island.

This girl might have thought I was taking a picture of her

Our first stop was the Spider-Man ride!

Then we rode The Hulk!
Gosh I haven’t done this ride in years.
I don’t think I’ve done it since I’ve been writing these trip reports.
The last time might have been mine and Jamie’s first trip in 2012.
And today I was reminded of the reason for that
I did NOT enjoy it.
I think it was because it’s outdoors, so you can see how high up you are.
I can do loop rides like Rock n Roller Coaster no problem, but I think they have to be in the dark, or not too high for me to enjoy them.

I felt super wobbly afterwards, but I put on a brave face.

After the Hulk it was around 5pm so we headed out of the park.
We had a successful day at Universal!
We ordered an Uber and headed over to Hollywood Studios!


Click for Next Post!

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[TheLittleKatie]

Day 7
Sunday 10th February 2019
Part 3 – Hollywood Studios and Epcot


We arrived at Hollywood Studios at around 5:30pm, still wearing our Hogwarts uniforms

We headed straight to our fastpass at Tower of Terror!

Fran sat out unfortunately, she really hates that plummet.
It’s so sad that she hates my top 2 favourite rides!
(Splash Mountain and Tower of Terror )

We were seated in the front row woooo.
Our elevator was really loud and excitable, everyone was screaming and laughing the whole time.
And the guy sat behind Jamie was wearing scuba goggles!?!
Everyone was just living their best lives.

YAY TOWER.

Next we had a fastpass for Slinky Dog Dash, for our first ride on it ever!
We headed over to Toy Story Land while the sun was setting, it looked so pretty.

At this point, our evening at Hollywood Studios took a bit of a turn for the worst
We had a bit of time to kill before our Slinky fastpass, so we joined the line at Toy Story Mania.
But shortly after we joined the line, Rob realised he didn’t have his phone!

We knew that he definitely had it in the Uber, but that was the last time he’d used it.
We exited the Toy Story Mania line and headed back to the front of the park to ask at bag check, but it wasn’t there.
Then Fran managed to get through to the Uber driver on the phone, and he found it in his car!
Thank God!

We’ve all been there, I lost my phone at Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party once.
I had a complete meltdown, then I found it in the bottom of my treat bag.

We got the phone back, then we went back to Toy Story Land to use our Slinky fastpass.
BUT THEN it broke down, right after we’d entered the line!
My face when…

This was a full-on break down, with no timeframe for reopening
We were given anytime return fastpasses for Slinky on our MDE accounts, plus two extra anytime fastpasses for most rides in the parks.
So that was good
We would have to make some time to come back to Slinky in our last 3 days though!

We decided to leave Hollywood Studios, and we got the friendship boat back to the Beach Club.

We did a quick change out of our Hogwart’s uniforms.
Fran and I were messaging and agreed to both wear the same green Mickey sweater and black jeans, and see if the boys noticed
They did notice and they laughed, but I don’t think they expected anything less from us to be honest!
Walking through the Beach Club hallways like…

At 8pm we walked into Epcot to get dinner!
We chose Tangerine Café in Morocco, which none of us had ever done before, and yum and wow, it was delicious!
Who knew!

This is the view from where we sat, which was right by the counter.

Me, Jamie and Rob all got the Mediterranean chicken wrap, and it was SO good.

It contained chicken, red onion, lettuce, tomato and tzatziki sauce!
I love tzatziki sauce.
The wrap was really doughy and substantial, which I really needed after the tiny pastie meal I’d had at The Three Broomsticks for lunch.
Jamie enjoyed it so much, once he’d finished he went back up to the counter and got another one!!

Yay for Tangerine Café, we really liked it!
Also the CMs at the counter asked if Fran and I were twins
I wonder why.

We had tried two new quick service restaurants at Epcot this trip (Tangerine Café in Morocco and Katsura Grill in Japan) and we loved both of them!
Sometimes Jamie and I just want to stick to our favourites, but we should really try to be more adventurous so that we have more new experiences like this.

After dinner we explored the Morocco pavilion, then we strolled over to Germany.
Rob got a caramel filled chocolate cookie from Karamell-Kuche, which he shared with us all
For some strange reason, we’d got a treat from my beloved Karamell-Kuche, and I DIDN’T take a picture of it
That is so unlike me.

But the cookie looked like this!

At 9pm we watched IllumiNations from in between the Germany and Italy pavilions.

It made me emotional because I thought it was probably going to be the last time I ever saw it.
And it was!
IllumiNations had it’s final show on September 30th 2019, after running for 20 years

After the fireworks we headed out of the park through International Gateway and back to the Beach Club.
We were so tired after our busy day!
We went back to the room and had a fairly early night.

Goodnight!​

 

[LivCK]

Excited to see the new posts when I logged on this morning! From reading your previous TRs and knowing you like Back to the Future and the Princess and the Frog etc., I always thought we could be firm friends - now I know you also want a squished face cat, it's confirmed Congratulations on your engagement - looking forward to reading the rest of the report!

 

[the2ndstar2theright]

After doing several online quizzes, I’m firmly a Hufflepuff

Me, too!! Nothing to be ashamed of--my argument is always that Tonks was a Hufflepuff, which means that Hufflepuffs are awesome.

Rob and Fran were sat behind us, and at the end of the ride Fran was like,
“I didn’t even know what I was meant to be shooting at! ”

Me either, Fran.

They should’ve kept it as Back to the Future, which is my one of my favourite films!
I vaguely remember riding that ride as a kid.
I’ve YouTubed it more recently and it just looks so great.

Okay so I never got the chance to ride this when it was Back to the Future and I am very upset that they changed it. It would be so much better as Back to the Future!

At 1:30pm we got the Hogwarts Express from the Studios park over to Islands of Adventure!

I'm seriously impressed by how much you guys got done in just a few hours.

Here’s the whole gang on our first day of school!

Kind of obsessed with this. Yall look so great!

We’ve all been there, I lost my phone at Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party once.
I had a complete meltdown, then I found it in the bottom of my treat bag.

This is 1000% something I would do.

Fran and I were messaging and agreed to both wear the same green Mickey sweater and black jeans, and see if the boys noticed
They did notice and they laughed, but I don’t think they expected anything less from us to be honest!

Also something I would do.

At 8pm we walked into Epcot to get dinner!

Park hopping machines!!

 

[FantasiaMagic]

I was so glad this day was finally here.
Fran had been so upset when we’d had to skip our day at Universal day because her and Jamie got sick.
Rob and Fran are huge Harry Potter fans, so I’d promised we’d still make time to go!
After some reshuffling of plans, that day had finally come!
We actually went two days in row, and both times in “costume”
Today we each dressed up as members from our Hogwarts houses

I'm so glad you were able able to rearrange your plans in order to get to Universal! You all look so cute and it's great to hear you all had a nice time, especially Fran as it was her first!

We were seated in the front row woooo.
Our elevator was really loud and excitable, everyone was screaming and laughing the whole time.
And the guy sat behind Jamie was wearing scuba goggles!?!
Everyone was just living their best lives.

This sounds so fun! I always love watching the video you get through MDE, everyone's reactions are great!

So beautiful...

We would have to make some time to come back to Slinky in our last 3 days though!

It's good to hear the lost phone situation was resolved fairly quickly. Boo for Slinky breaking down but I'm glad you guys got to go back to ride it. I'm really looking forward to hearing about your reactions!

It contained chicken, red onion, lettuce, tomato and tzatziki sauce!

Looks delicious!

We had tried two new quick service restaurants at Epcot this trip (Tangerine Café in Morocco and Katsura Grill in Japan) and we loved both of them!
Sometimes Jamie and I just want to stick to our favourites, but we should really try to be more adventurous so that we have more new experiences like this.

I'm the same way. I love my old favorites, but when I do venture out and try new places I am usually so happy I did!

But the cookie looked like this!

YUM!

It made me emotional because I thought it was probably going to be the last time I ever saw it.
And it was!
IllumiNations had it’s final show on September 30th 2019, after running for 20 years

Yes it was sad to see it one last time. When I was there in Sept 2019 I knew I had to make time for it. That shows will always hold a place in our hearts!

 

[pkondz]

Aww Pedro, just to start with, I was reading back over my 2016 trip report, and remembering how fun it was to meet you that time When you spotted us in the line for China at Food and Wine Festival one evening, and then later in the trip sitting in La Cava Del Tequila for aaaages getting ushered out by the waitresses good times!

That was fun.
And there were a few folks who, for one reason or another didn't or couldn't make it... so you got saddled with carrying 20kg of food around for the rest of the night. Sorry! I only thought of the inconvenience after!

WHAT.
They're pretty famous! And they're the pride and joy of my hometown

I'm listening to Knee Socks right now.

Not many people have heard of mardy to be fair It means grumpy. It was very specific to our area of the UK, but the Arctic Monkeys made it famous across the country by releasing a (fantastic) song called 'Mardy Bum' in the mid-2000s, and now I think pretty much everyone here knows it

I listened to Mardy Bum when I read this. Which is why I'm on Knee Socks now. I wonder what's next?
I'll post as they happen.

That's usually when people need to start reading my ramblings in order to get to bed at a reasonable time of night

Ahh I'm such a traitor to Disney fans everywhere, I just don't like it that much!!

Well... I've never had it since I've never been there.

I tried it at dinner a few years ago. It just reminds me of eating melted strawberry ice cream that's been sat out and is now room temperature Are you supposed to eat it as a dessert? It's just not that appetising to me!

I think it's... not a dessert? I don't know!

Apparently my favourite gif at the moment

And Arabella just started...

I read this in Lumiere's voice.

Sure. I'm part French, so that works.

The suspense kills me! It's worse than the big drop, because you just don't know how you're going to come out the other side

Hahaha I hadn't noticed! Very 'Old Gregg'..

OMG! What is that?!?!?

Jamie had to make a couple of runs to the bathroom don't tell him I'm telling you this.

It'll stay just between you and me.

You don't like to MousekeDance it Pedro?!

No. I. Do. Not.

This belongs at Disney After Dark.

It's the little store by Gaston's Tavern in New Fantasyland! They have loads of cute Beauty and the Beast stuff in there.

Oh, sure! I've been there.

Yep! That's the picture!

Lots of things love

Hey!

Well.... yeah.

You HAVE to go there! Next time we're at Disney at the same time I'll drag you there.

Deal!

Fantastic!!!! That's a surprising number of ingredients just for the sauce. But I am fully committed

Let us know if you do it!

 

[pkondz]

Now listening to Do I Wanna Know?
It sounds familiar, but maybe it's just the riff? Not sure.

Rob and Fran are huge Harry Potter fans, so I’d promised we’d still make time to go!

You have to!
Oh, and now I'm hearing R U Mine

We actually went two days in row, and both times in “costume”
Today we each dressed up as members from our Hogwarts houses

Love that.
There certainly is no shortage of people who dress up.

After doing several online quizzes, I’m firmly a Hufflepuff

Sorry!

Jamie is a Slytherin

And absolutely no one is surprised by this.

Rob even had a robe, fake glasses, and drew a scar on his head

Right down to the socks!

Voodoo Doughnut – now open!

But did you get some??

When they opened up the park we made a beeline straight for Diagon Alley!

I bet you were the only ones!

This Slytherin-in-disguise looks a bit shifty…

She LOVED it, she was frantically trying to look at everything and take it all in

I remember that feeling! It's just so... overwhelming!

Rob and Fran also did some spells with their interactive wands!

Fun.
My youngest DD bought one when we were in Uni California.

I really love these cats with the smushed up faces.
I want one so bad.

So get one. Or is that a firm "No" from Hymie?

Then we did something at Rob’s suggestion, that Jamie and I hadn’t actually done before.
We went to Ollivander’s!

You hadn't? It's a fun little show.

around 11:30am and went to ride Men In Black!
This is one of mine and Jamie’s favourites, we get so competitive!
And I won this round!

Good for you!

What’s even more impressive is that I didn’t even get the 100,000 bonus points, and Jamie did, so really I should've won by an even bigger margin

Whoa! You really kicked his butt!

They should’ve kept it as Back to the Future, which is my one of my favourite films!

yes on both counts.

 

[pkondz]

Now listening to Four Out Of Five

On the way to our next attraction we spotted A GULL.
He looked like he was ready to pounce on Lard Lad’s donut, which was amusing to us because Jamie (our Gull) was going through a donut phase.

Totally see the resemblance.

We found this guy in the queue.
That was exciting because Jamie and I are usually in the Express line, so I don’t think we’ve ever seen him before.

Huh. I had no idea. I've only done the Express line, too.

I really love the outdoor scene of the ET queue.
I might prefer it to the actual ride
No that’s a lie, I like the first half of the ride.
The music gives me feelings.

I love the queue and the first half of the ride and absolutely despise the last half... or the "home planet" part. Yuck.

At the end of the ride, E.T. didn’t say goodbye to us, AGAIN.
It’s getting kind of rude to be honest.

Totally unacceptable.

Now listening to Snap Out Of It

It would be like E.T. was on one of those gameshows where you have to remember random items on the conveyor belt then say it all back.

Never seen a gameshow like that, though.

After E.T. we rode The Mummy!
Which surprisingly I have no evidence of (other than my trip notes from the time), which is strange because this is probably my favourite ride in the park.
We actually rode it twice in a row because there was no line!
It’s a truly under-appreciated attraction.

It really is a great ride. The lines in California were much longer than in Florida.

The queue is so good, there’s so much to see.

They did so much in that queue!

I got the beef pasties, but I think I chose the wrong meal because it wasn’t much at all…?!

That's why I didn't get it. My reaction "Oh! Pasties! I have to try this!... Wait... that's it???? Nope!"

I was still hungry after my teeny pasties, so we went to Honeydukes and I got some chocolate!

chocolate > pasties.

Our first stop was the Spider-Man ride!

A great ride.

I felt super wobbly afterwards, but I put on a brave face.

Were you in the back or the front?

 

[pkondz]

Just finished One For The Road and now I'm listening to My Propeller

We arrived at Hollywood Studios at around 5:30pm, still wearing our Hogwarts uniforms

And they let you in???

Fran sat out unfortunately, she really hates that plummet.
It’s so sad that she hates my top 2 favourite rides!
(Splash Mountain and Tower of Terror )

You need a more stringent weeding out method for picking your friends.

And the guy sat behind Jamie was wearing scuba goggles!?!
Everyone was just living their best lives.

Perfect!

At this point, our evening at Hollywood Studios took a bit of a turn for the worst
We had a bit of time to kill before our Slinky fastpass, so we joined the line at Toy Story Mania.
But shortly after we joined the line, Rob realised he didn’t have his phone!

Oh, no!!!

Fran managed to get through to the Uber driver on the phone, and he found it in his car!
Thank God!

Phew!

We’ve all been there, I lost my phone at Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party once.
I had a complete meltdown, then I found it in the bottom of my treat bag.

Losing your phone is the absolute worst, but...

We got the phone back, then we went back to Toy Story Land to use our Slinky fastpass.
BUT THEN it broke down, right after we’d entered the line!

Oh, no!!

Fran and I were messaging and agreed to both wear the same green Mickey sweater and black jeans, and see if the boys noticed
They did notice and they laughed, but I don’t think they expected anything less from us to be honest!

We chose Tangerine Café in Morocco, which none of us had ever done before,

One place I'd like to try.

Rob got a caramel filled chocolate cookie from Karamell-Kuche, which he shared with us all

mmmmm...

It made me emotional because I thought it was probably going to be the last time I ever saw it.
And it was!

I'm looking forward to the new show. (No, not the temporary Epcot Forever)

And now I'm just starting The View From The Afternoon as I finish commenting.

 

[butterscotchcollins]

I think Fran is my spirit animal (let your snake flag fly, Slytherin Queen!!!)

Also I am anxiously anticipating the engagement details (like everybody else) - congratulations! I'm also getting married this year and the only reason we didn't get engaged in front of the Castle is because I told my fiance I would be ugly crying SO HARD and it would not be cute (I was right). Feel free to vent about anything wedding-planning-related btw, especially since this year is so

 

[rdkeim]

Wow - what a busy day! Made me tired reading about it. But, it sounded like great fun minus the phone incident and SDD going down. I haven't been to Universal in many years - pre-Harry Potter. We need to take a longer WDW trip so we have time to check it out. Anxiously waiting for the BIG moment!

 

[vrajewski10513]

We were all so excited to be at the Wizarding World in our costumes!
Rob had already been to Universal with his family back in 2016, but this was Fran’s first time.
She LOVED it, she was frantically trying to look at everything and take it all in

I think that's everyones first reaction! There is just SO MUCH going on you dont know where to go first!

We really wanted Rob to get picked to be part of the “show”, it would’ve been so great with him in his Harry costume!
I’m sure he would’ve done a great acting job too

We got really confident, theorising that they MUST pick adults, because if they pick kids that could be seen as pressurising parents into buying wands…
It’s like advertising to kids, making them think that these wands actually have magical powers
Plus Rob’s sister was chosen when they were here a few years ago, and there were a bunch of kids in the group that time.
But our theory was nulled pretty quickly.

Um, after what he pulled at Star Tours, I would have put my money on him!

After the ride it was like 2:30pm so we got lunch at The Three Broomsticks!
I got the beef pasties, but I think I chose the wrong meal because it wasn’t much at all…?!

There were three pasties to start with, but they were tiny!
I didn’t even make a note of what the others had, I must’ve been very disappointed with my choice
However, to be fair, some of the photos on their Tripadvisor page look really good.
I’ll have to do some research on what to order for next time.

This is so suprising! I usually get the roasted chicken meal and it is SO MUCH FOOD. The portions for the other meals i've seen are massive as well.

At this point, our evening at Hollywood Studios took a bit of a turn for the worst
We had a bit of time to kill before our Slinky fastpass, so we joined the line at Toy Story Mania.
But shortly after we joined the line, Rob realised he didn’t have his phone!

WORST. FEELING. EVER. Stomach drops down to your butt and you're just like OH SHIIIIIII.....

 

[TheLittleKatie]

Excited to see the new posts when I logged on this morning! From reading your previous TRs and knowing you like Back to the Future and the Princess and the Frog etc., I always thought we could be firm friends - now I know you also want a squished face cat, it's confirmed Congratulations on your engagement - looking forward to reading the rest of the report!

Haha YES Back to the Future, the Princess and the Frog and squished faced cats are three of my favourite things! So we could definitely be friends

Wait though, I have one very important question for you, which is make or break when it comes to friendship for me....how do you feel about the original Willy Wonka film from 1971, and are you extremely offended by the Johnny Depp remake? If you prefer the remake all I have to say is

(just kidding.... kind of)

 

[TheLittleKatie]

Me, too!! Nothing to be ashamed of--my argument is always that Tonks was a Hufflepuff, which means that Hufflepuffs are awesome.

Yay fellow Hufflepuff! The sorting hat may not think I'm smart or brave or cunning...... but I do like baking and petting animals, which feels like a very Hufflepuff thing to do, so it's probably accurate

Okay so I never got the chance to ride this when it was Back to the Future and I am very upset that they changed it. It would be so much better as Back to the Future!

Right! You can watch it on YouTube if you get the chance, it's so much fun! I love Biff as a character so it's fun that he was in the ride!

Kind of obsessed with this. Yall look so great!

Thank you! And thank you for referring to us as 'yall', what a great word. I want to adopt this into the UK language

This is 1000% something I would do.

Trick or treating SO MUCH that your carrier bag turns into such an endless pit of candy that you lose your belongings in it.... such a Hufflepuff thing to do

 

[LivCK]

I wrote a full (and some would say witty and entertaining) reply which even included a gif of Johnny Wonka saying "I never thought we'd have so much in common" but it was rejected for "inappropriate elements" which I think goes to show that everybody agrees that the original is better..!

 

[vamassey1]

I'm a little late but really loving your report!

Congrats on your Engagement! Disney is the perfect place to get engaged.

Now that I'm caught up I'm hoping to stay on track. Looking forward to more of your adventures.